Walking For Weight Loss & Wellness

Walking is one of the easiest ways to get the exercise you need to stay healthy. 

Experts recommend at least 2½ hours of moderate activity (such as brisk walking, brisk cycling, or yard work) a week. It's fine to walk in blocks of 10 minutes or more throughout your day and week.

• If you're worried about how brisk walking might affect your health, talk with your doctor before you start a walking program.
• Start with a short-term goal. For example, walk for 5 or 10 minutes every day. Or increase your number of steps by 300 to 500 each day.
• After you've made walking a habit, set a longer-term goal. You may want to set a goal of walking briskly for at least 30 minutes a day or work up to 10,000 steps a day. You can try to do this 5 days a week or more.
• You can wear a pedometer to track your steps each day.
• To stay motivated, find a walking partner, such as a family member, friend, or coworker. Daily dog walks are also a great way to keep up your walking routine.

You don't have to walk all at once. You can split it up. It's fine to walk in blocks of 10 minutes or more at a time. If you use a pedometer, you might be surprised to see how many steps you take by simply doing chores and errands or by taking walking breaks during the day. 

There are many ways to walk more without going on a long walk. Use the stairs instead of the elevator, or park farther away from work or a store. Instead of e-mailing or phoning a coworker or neighbor, walk over. When you meet with someone or visit with a friend, suggest taking a walk instead of staying inside.

To get the heart-healthy benefits of walking, you need to walk briskly enough to increase your heart rate and breathing, but not so fast that you can't talk comfortably.

Brisk walking is a form of aerobic exercise. This is exercise that increases your heart rate for an extended time. Aerobic exercise helps strengthen your heart, lungs, and muscles. A strong heart carries more blood, along with oxygen and nutrients, to the rest of the body. Aerobic exercise also lowers blood pressure and can help you stay at a healthy weight.

Walking and other aerobic exercise also can improve your mood and energy. Regular exercise helps prevent and reduce symptoms of depression. It helps reduce symptoms of anxiety in children and teens.

Walking also keeps your bones healthy. It is a weight-bearing activity, which means that it works the muscles and bones against gravity. This can help reduce your risk of osteoporosis and broken bones.

Walking, like all physical activity, burns calories. Being active is important for staying at a healthy weight.

How can you make a walking program part of your life?

 

Think of walking as an easy way to burn calories and stay fit while you go about your daily routine. You can make walking an important part of your life by getting friends and family to join you and by finding new ways to put steps in your day.

Walk with others

• Ask family members, friends, and coworkers to join you. Set goals together.
• Join a walking group or club.
• Set a goal to take part in an organized fitness walk.
• Walk a dog every day.
• Plan family outings around walks together. Being physically active with kids sets an example they'll follow as they grow older.

Add steps whenever you can

• Schedule walks on your daily calendar.
• Buy a pedometer at a sporting goods store. A pedometer counts how many steps you take. The first time you wear it, count how many steps you normally take in a day. Wear your pedometer every day, and set a goal for increasing the number of steps each day. At first, try to add 300 to 500 steps to your day. Then work toward 2,000 more steps a day. A good long-term goal is to get 10,000 steps a day.
• Instead of watching TV or going out to eat, go out for a walk.
• At work, get up and move around once an hour.
• When possible, walk to the grocery store, doctor appointments, work, school, or shopping. You could walk a lap around the grocery store before you start shopping.
• Park your car farther away from work or other places you're going.
• Walk around your neighborhood or around a park.
• Walk during TV commercials.

Be safe

• Know your surroundings. Walk in a well-lighted, safe place.
• Carry a cell phone for emergencies.
• Wear comfortable shoes and socks that cushion your feet.
• Pay attention to your walking surface. Use sidewalks and paths.
• If you usually walk outside and the weather is bad, take comfortable shoes to the mall and walk several laps inside.
• Drink plenty of water before, during, and after you are active. This is very important when it's hot out and when you do intense exercise. Take a water bottle with you when you walk.

Where to go from here

 

Now that you have read this information, you are ready to plan a walking program that suits you.

Talk with your doctor if you're worried about how brisk walking might affect your health

If you have questions about this information, print it out and take it with you when you visit your doctor.

Source: WebMD

Walk This Way... And Lose 10lb In Four Weeks!

May is National Walking Month in the UK, so I thought I would share the benefits of walking in your weight loss journey. Enjoy!

How simply putting one foot in front of the other can beat the bulge 

By Joanna Hall

 

Next time you are out on a busy street, look around you. There will, no doubt, be people walking and going about their daily business. So far, so ordinary. But stop for a moment to really watch. Hunched over, shoulders tense, arms unmoving, heads often bowed – the simple act of movement seems a struggle for many.

And that is because they are not walking correctly. I admit it sounds ludicrous – starting to walk is a milestone most of us pass shortly after our eighth month of life, usually with the help of our parents. But, typically, bar a little self-taught fine-tuning, there ends the lesson. 

 

As adults, a life spent sitting at a desk, struggling around with heavy bags and wearing all kinds of lovely-looking but unforgiving footwear takes its toll on our posture.

Just as we often sit incorrectly, we also walk incorrectly. The knock-on effect? An epidemic of joint pain – in particular bad backs – affecting millions of us. 

About eight in ten of us have one of more bouts of lower-back pain at some time in our lives. One Department of Health survey suggested that 15 per of adults are in continuous pain from a bad back.

With this in mind, I first set about researching efficient and posturally correct ways of practising the everyday activity of walking.

 

I studied sport science at Loughborough University, so I have a strong research background – and I drew from studies in the world of physiology, biomechanics and fitness disciplines such as Pilates. I now teach a simple way to master walking that is, I believe, the most beneficial way of moving. 

I became my own guinea pig after having my first child. I didn’t want to do the same level of exercise I undertook previously – I used to jog for miles. Just from walking, my thighs got leaner, my waist tapered in, my bottom was lifted and I eradicated my saddlebags. 

I can promise it will do for you what it has for hundreds of my private clients: walking daily will help you shed up to 10 lb in less than a month. Even if you don’t lose that much straight away, you will look slimmer, dropping more than a dress size.

You must make one diet tweak: no starchy carbs after 5pm. There’s no need to go to a gym, use expensive equipment or even to get sweaty. 

This isn't power-walking, which involves all kinds of strange hip wiggling. Read this guide for everything you need to master the technique: your new walking style will look fast, smooth and fluid – and you’ll feel dynamic and buzz with energy. 

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The principle of my method is simple. It is based on correctly aligning the fascia – the connective tissue in the body, which starts just below the skin. In the 1990s, anatomists discovered that the fascia encases, separates and envelops every part of our physiology – muscles, organs and blood vessels. It’s like a net that holds us together.

The theory is currently supported by many chiropractors, podiatrists and sports scientists. So by holding the body correctly as you exercise, you are effectively shrink-wrapping the muscles within the fascia and working the body from the inside out. By aligning the body properly, posture is corrected and movement becomes fluid while discomfort –such as back pain – lessens. The body benefits from correct postural alignment in three ways:

• Cosmetically: by targeting the fascia, body shape is streamlined.
• Functionally: back, knee, hip and neck discomfort are alleviated as joints are correctly aligned.
• Posturally: as movement quality increases, you look more agile, stand taller and look younger. 

WHY WALK?

The NHS scheme Live Well recommends that ideally we all walk 10,000 steps a day (about five miles), which burns up to 450 calories. But on average we walk only about 4,000 steps a day.

It takes about ten minutes to walk 1,500 steps. Professor Tudor Locke, an American academic specialising in physical activity, suggests that walking fewer than 5,000 steps a day indicates a sedentary lifestyle.

A 2010 Government report about sedentary behaviour showed that it is associated with higher mortality overall, heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. 

WALK TO BEAT DIABETES AND BOOST MENTAL HEALTH

Aside from improvements in posture, higher calorie expenditure and protection for the joints, there are a host of other health benefits to be gained from walking.

CANCER

Ten thousand cases of breast and bowel cancer could be prevented each year if more of us took a brisk walk every day. Just 45 minutes of daily activity at a moderate level could prevent about 5,500 cases of breast cancer a year in the UK.

DIABETES

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US produced a fact sheet called The Relationship Of Walking To Mortality Among US Adults With Diabetes, which states that those with diabetes who walked for two or more hours a week lowered their mortality rate from all causes by 39 per cent.

HIGH CHOLESTEROL

A study was published suggesting that low-intensity exercise such as walking improves insulin sensitivity and blood lipid levels better than an hour-long high-intensity workout.

MENTAL HEALTH

Charity Mind advocates walking to relieve stress, improve sleep quality and fight depression, since physical activity causes the brain to release endorphins – chemicals that improve mood.

DEMENTIA

Researchers from the Boston Medical Center who studied people in their early 60s found that those with a slower walking pace were one-and-a-half times more likely to develop dementia.

• Joanna Hall’s Walkactive Programme: The Simple Yet Revolutionary Way To Transform Your Body, For Life
• Other recommended reading on Walking: Walking for Fitness by Nina Barough, Walking for Weight Loss, Wellness & Energy by Jessica Smith